I actually started studying what has been termed the “psychology of technology” way back in 1984 when Apple introduced the Macintosh in a stunning Superbowl advertisement that (1) promised us that (2), “1984 won’t be like 1984” and tomorrow’s computers would herald a change from the humdrum world of IBM computers to the highly engrossing world of the Mac.

After all, isn’t that (3) what we used to do with the television?

When mom or dad needed some time to make dinner or do a bit of work they knew that (4) they could sit their child in front of a Disney video and they would have a respite while their little couch potato sat absorbed.

When I talk to parents I discuss three main issues that (5) can arise from allowing their children to overuse technology.

Two days of flying found Lindsey in Dhaka, a city roiling with children begging and men hawking everything
from fake Nike t-shirts to fresh-cut mangos to pirated DVDs. She’d been assigned to a sustainability project

3

on the subcontinent, fieldwork a requirement for her concentration in development and globalization. And
once Dr. Hassan had underlined the connections between hygiene and justice, Lindsey overcame her
disappointment at not being selected for the women’s project in Tanzania, happy, in any case, to be helping

“So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

I’m sure I responded with a gasp and dumbfounded silence. I had imagined the Jobs’s household was like a nerd’s paradise: that the walls were giant touch screens, the dining table was made from tiles of iPads and that iPods were handed out to guests like chocolates on a pillow.

Nick Bilton, “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent”, 2014

Our brains have a specialized mechanism, called the Default Mode Network, which has been appraised as being operational during daydreaming, mind wandering and other non-task-oriented behaviors. If you are constantly and actively making decisions about what to do on an iPad, you will not activate the DMN which neuroscientists are now understanding keeps your mind focused and does not allow for the types of “ah ha” experiences gleaned during mind wandering.

The Atlantic. “How Children Use iPads”. The Atlantic website, March 20, 2013, viewed November 2013. (www.theatlantic.com)

Nick Bilton. “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent”. The New York Times website, September 11, 2014, viewed November 2014. (www.nytimes.com)

Image credit: Photo of boy with iPad. Getty Images. In “How Much Technology Should You Let Your Child Use?”. The Huffington Post website, April 24, 2013, viewed November 2014. (www.huffingtonpost.com)

Interview with Hanna Rosin

How Children Use iPads

In the video clip from The Atlantic website, editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz interviews journalist and writer Hanna Rosin about her article “The Touch-Screen Generation”, which appeared in The Atlantic in 2013.